One of Ethereum’s oldest NFTs, Genesis MoonCats, is facing a plausible extinction or lock up after brutal bot attacks last week. The MoonCats are Ethereum’s first NFTs project and now under serious deliberation to be locked up indefinitely. And the reason is that these highly valuable, 160 black and white “Genesis MoonCats” NFTs can be easily snapped up by running bots when released for adoption.

Bot Attacks Destroying the Ultra Valuable Genesis MoonCats

The fact, these valuable tokens trade for about 55 ETH apiece has gotten the people to ransack this project and free up nearly 23, 344 MoonCats, which are currently trading for an average of about $1800.

The pseudonym developers of this project also called Ponderware, are authorized to release these cute and adorable digital cats for adoption to new owners, who’re already selling them for as high as $100,000. In order to grab hold of them as soon as they’re available, people have set up bots in anticipation of their release by these developers. Running on the simple ‘if-then’ command, these bots automatically buy up these MoonCats, a process which often ends in snapping of the NFTs whilst completely obliterating them.

The MoonCats developers and holders are worried that these bots are destroying the rare and valuable cats and also the fun related to them since most people don’t know how to program their own bots.

Setting Up of Votes to Decide the Fate of Genesis MoonCats

Bots aren’t illegal which makes it impossible for the Ponderware to prevent them. To counter this, they have set up a vote to decide whether to destroy the private key to release these cats, locking up these NFTs forever, leaving the project incomplete.

Alternatively, the Ponderware can raise enough money to front-run their own bots and store the cats in their wallet, then give away the cats as they deem fit. But due to a peculiarity in the MoonCats smart contract, they would need about 500 ETH, or about $900,000.

The voting concludes tomorrow to determine the fate of tokens currently worth a whopping $16 million. And about 718 of the 986 votes (72%) want to scrap the tokens. No matter the decision, Ponderware will airdrop five MoonCats, including 1 Genesis Cat, to five random voters as a final gesture of gratitude.